Belladonna

by Anbara Salam

She shut her door and threw the pillow on the bed. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why has nobody noticed until now? What have they all been doing?” She ripped off her robe and dropped it on the floor and turned away from me. I averted my eyes as she pulled on a pair of jeans and grabbed her orange sweater from the chair.

  “Where are you going?” I said as she unrolled a pair of woolen socks.

  “To find her.”

  “But where?”

  She whisked her coat off the peg in her closet, catching the edge of her book on the bedside table so it toppled onto the floor. “Out. Around.” She leaned against the door and pulled on her boots.

  “She’s not at the spa. They already checked,” I said.

  She grabbed her red hat from under the bed. “Well, then I’ll check the orchard or the shrine.”

  “OK.” I followed her out.

  She turned around. “Bridget,” she said, pausing. “You’re not coming.”

  “Oh.” I felt as if she had slapped me.

  “I’ll be quicker by myself. I know where she goes.”

  “But—” I swallowed. “I can help. It might be better with two of us. What if—” Isabella was walking away, and I trotted to keep up with her. “But what if she’s hurt, or bleeding or injured?” I said, not liking the way it sounded at all, since I had to almost shout as we went down the stairs.

  At the bottom of the staircase Isabella stopped and turned to me. “Bridget. Seriously. Don’t come. I don’t want you.”

  I stopped. I stood in the dark staircase and watched the door swinging.

  * * *

  Back in my room I sat on the bed, willing myself not to cry. I bunched my hands into fists and worked them across the threads in the coverlet. The others were calling to each other, making plans. Who was ringing whom, who was going where. Footsteps clattered on the stairs, and girls ran up and down the corridor. I heard Mary L.’s groggy voice—“What’s going on?”—and Bunny whispering, “No one can find Sister Teresa.”

  My throat was aching. I wanted Sister Teresa to be gone, didn’t I? Not injured or anything, but certainly away from the academy. Like maybe if she had to be in Brancorsi until the end of term. Had I wished for it too hard? Had I prayed for it, and now God was punishing me by making it true in the worst way? Isabella’s anguished face sliced my insides. I pictured Sister Teresa taking my hands in hers. What if she really was in danger? And then an oozing kind of jealousy crept over my gut. Everyone was so worried about Sister Teresa, and all she did was go missing. I could easily have gone missing if I’d wanted to. She was practically being rewarded for being so careless as to go missing. I pictured Isabella’s face as she snatched up her hat. If I helped find Sister Teresa, everyone would be so pleased with me. Isabella would have to be grateful then, if I was helping.

  I went down the stairs and out by the side gate, but I couldn’t see Isabella. I pictured her turning to me: “I don’t want you.” My eyes stung. She didn’t realize how harsh she sounded, that was all. I walked up toward the shrine path, trying to spot Isabella ahead of me. I imagined finding Sister Teresa lying beside the shrine, shivering in the cold, her lips trembling. She’d fallen, twisted her ankle. She’d been lying there all night. “You found her just in time,” the doctor would say. “Thank heavens you were there.” Sister Teresa would take my hand over the hospital linens. “God bless you, Bridget,” she would say.

  I picked up my pace, hoping to catch up with Isabella. By the time I reached the top of the hill, I had to unzip Nancy’s jacket and let the cold air circulate over my chest. I stumbled toward the shrine. There was nobody there. “Isabella?” I called out, walking in a circle around the shrine and looking tentatively over the edge of the hill and down toward the fruit trees below. I pictured stumbling across Isabella’s body lying there. Her dark hair beneath a pile of stones. I shuddered.

  I followed the hilltop toward the spring. On the other side of the spring, a row of cypress trees marked the edge of the hill, plunging down to meet a scrubby patch of woodland and the Blue Mountains beyond. To the left was a field with yet more sheep. “Isabella?” I shouted. “Sister Teresa?” My voice rolled down the hill and was swallowed by the trees. Then, after some time, I called again. “Rosaria?”

  On the way down the hill, I decided that it was probably better if Father Gavanto found her so he could scold her for getting everyone worried. Everyone might even be mad at her. And this whole charade would prove just how thoughtless Sister Teresa could be. Probably she’d been in the bath this morning. Or wringing out the laundry. Or out for a walk. What a lot of fuss! Isabella might end up being annoyed at her. “What a drama queen,” she would say, rolling her eyes. I took a right at the stile and walked through the pear trees on the other side to prolong my journey. Maybe, I wondered—if I stayed out long enough, someone would worry about me for a change. I pulled a branch from a tree and yanked it until it yielded, and began shredding the leaves. Donna Maria had only known Sister Teresa was missing when the garbage hadn’t been emptied. What a sad reason to be discovered missing.

  It started to get colder, and I became aware of a hard ache in my stomach. I pressed my hand against my belly and the ache didn’t go away. An icy breeze ruffled my hair and plunged down the back of my collar. What if she’d been out in the cold all night? And now she was hurt and afraid? A lump rose into my throat. Sister Teresa had always tried to be nice to me. It wasn’t her fault she was boring and weak. Hastily I took back all the terrible things I’d ever thought about her. She was a nun, after all. Surely God would protect her? My mind cycled through all the awful things that could have happened to her. Crushed under a cider barrel in the apple cellar. Or drowned in the lake, her wimple floating to the surface. Or snared in a rabbit trap in one of the fields. As I thought through each calamity, it made it safer somehow, as if cataloging all the ways she could be injured would neutralize it, make it less likely to happen. A new thought struck me: what if this was divine retribution for all those games of Dead Nun? Our punishment had been brewing all this time and now Sister Teresa was suffering on our account. My throat tightened. I made a bargain with God. The longer I took to get back to the academy, the more likely it was that Sister Teresa would be found. I would go to chapel twice a day. Isabella, too.

  I began to get truly cold, my fingers stiff, my toes numb. I tucked my hair into the collar of Nancy’s jacket as a kind of insulation, but I could still feel the chill stabbing at my ears. As I approached the academy building, I spotted Greta’s face in her window. She waved at me, then opened the window and shouted something, but I couldn’t hear. She beckoned, so I ran. They had found her! She was back! I was so relieved my whole body felt light, even as the hard ground jolted through my ankles and knees. I ran as fast as I could, holding my breasts in place with my forearms. Thank God it was over! Greta had come down to the courtyard door to wait for me, and as I ran up, she unlocked the door and stood aside.

  “Anything?” she said, wrapping her cardigan tighter around her.

  I closed the door, gasping. “What do you mean? Weren’t you calling me?”

  “No, I was just hoping—” She dropped her eyes. She glanced back into the building toward nothing. “Father Gavanto rang the cops,” she whispered. “They’re in the library.”

  I felt dizzy. “Why’d he do that? There’s no crime, is there?”

  “I don’t know.” Greta rubbed the hem of her cardigan between her thumb and index finger. “Sally and I were wondering if maybe somebody hurt her.”

  “Oh God,” I said, a shiver creeping over my scalp, lifting all the roots of my hair. “Like, a murder?”

  Greta bit her lip, her cheeks shaking as she smothered a nervous smile. “Gosh, I’m so sorry. I know it’s not funny.”

  “So there are clues in the library?” I looked toward the door, picturing spots of blood over the mantelpiece, a reporter taking photographs of a chalk out
line. I felt the vulnerability of all of us now, as if we were naked in a field.

  Greta cocked her head. “No, it’s just warm in there.”

  “Oh.” I smiled too, and we caught each other’s eye.

  We went back up to the common room, where the chairs and ottomans were still arranged in a rough circle. Katherine was feeding the fire, huddled under a tartan blanket. Someone had pulled a card table into the middle of the circle and it was piled with homemade cookies and Life Savers candy that girls had brought from their rooms as offerings, all our Lenten promises forsaken. Bunny made me a cup of coffee in a Girl Scouts mug and tucked a brown knitted blanket over my knees. Joan offered me a tin of Anzac cookies and I ate six, until my head was ringing with the sugar. My clothes were damp and my forehead tight. It seemed like a thousand years since Nancy and I had gone to see the lambs. I fell into something like sleep against the headrest of the armchair, jolting myself awake every so often when my chin dropped. I was aware of people coming and going, but the sounds had a hollow quality to them, as if I were at the bottom of a well. Then someone shook my shoulder, and I started. Sally was peering at me.

  “Come on, sleepyhead, look sharp!”

  I was groggy and grumpy, chilled and yet sticky, and felt far worse than I had first thing in the morning. My head was aching and my mouth dry. Nancy was standing by the door with Isabella. I wondered how long Isabella had been there, and why she hadn’t woken me.

  “Is she found?” I said.

  Sally shook her head.

  My tongue was so papery it was hard to speak. I reached for the cup of coffee. The mug was horribly cold, with an oily patch on the top. But I drank it all the way to the bottom, wincing and not breathing through my nose.

  “OK,” said Nancy, rubbing her face vigorously all over, like she was trying to rearrange her features. “Listen up—” Bunny and Barbie were muttering to each other by the window and Nancy cleared her throat. “Seriously, listen up,” she said, rather desperately.

  “Shut up!” Sylvia shouted over to the window, and Bunny snapped her mouth closed.

  “Father Gavanto called the municipal police. They’re going to do a search of the convent. But first Donna Maria has to get the sisters out. So they’ll all wait here, and the cops will go in.”

  “What are they looking for?” asked Sylvia.

  “They’re just checking.” Nancy reached out her hand and I watched, amazed, as Isabella took it in hers and squeezed it. “They want to search the buildings. In case of an accident.”

  “But we already searched,” said Bunny. “We checked all over the academy. Every room.”

  “Even the classrooms,” Joan added.

  Nancy nodded impatiently. “I know, I know. Still, they want to check.”

  Barbie began to cry and we all looked at her. Bunny took her by the shoulder, sympathetic tears wobbling in her own eyes.

  “Also,” Nancy said, “we have to stay here, in the common room.”

  “What? Here?”

  “Why?”

  “Look, it’s only for a while. They’ll search the convent and the academy. We have to stay here. So we don’t mess anything up or confuse anyone.”

  “How are we going to confuse them?” Katherine said. “We know this place; it’s our home.”

  “Listen. We just have to put up with it. The main thing is to find Sister Teresa. She might be absolutely fine—gone out for a hike and now resting in a villager’s house.” Something about her tone of voice made it clear that was Nancy’s personal theory. “Or she could be hurt. We have to keep still and let them search.”

  Barbie sniffed. “What if she’s dead?” she said, her voice breaking.

  “No, no, honey. She’ll be fine.” Bunny stroked her shoulder again and again; it looked too aggressive a movement to be comforting.

  “But what if she isn’t? What if she’s been murdered? And there’s some creep going to murder us all?” Barbie wailed.

  “You don’t think we’re in danger, do you?”

  “What if there’s some murderer hiding out in the spa?”

  “Shut up,” said Isabella. She had her arms folded over her chest. She licked her lips. “She’s not murdered. Don’t be a fool.”

  Bunny glared distastefully at Isabella. “We’re all spooked, Bella. Give her a break.”

  Nancy put her hand out again on Isabella’s arm.

  Isabella let out a ragged breath. “This is fucking ridiculous.” She sat heavily on an ottoman and put her head in her hands. “It’s fucking ridiculous,” she was saying.

  The girls broke into fractured conversations. Barbie was still crying, and Greta went over to pat her head while Bunny murmured into her ear. I rose stiffly from the chair and walked to Isabella. I didn’t say anything. I just put my hand on her back. She glanced up at me, and her face was awful. Pinched, the corners of her lips turned down. I kept my hand there.

  “Wait, wait, everyone,” Katherine said, kneeling on the seat of an armchair and peering over the back to address us. “If the cops are going in our rooms, does that mean I can’t go in there first?”

  There was some debate about this. Bunny said no, we shouldn’t risk getting in trouble with the cops. Joan said we had rights as American citizens.

  “It’s just—I don’t want a cop nosing around in my room.” Uncharacteristically, Katherine blushed.

  We looked among ourselves, each compiling a mental catalog of shame awaiting the Italian cops. The panties on the floor, the bras hanging over the closet door handles, saucy letters from boyfriends in the top drawers, the empty bottles of plum wine, cigarettes stubbed out in saucers of cold cream.

  “Oh God.” Mary B. put her hands over her face. “I’ve got a box of Modess on the dresser,” she gasped through her fingers.

  A nervous laugh broke through the room until Sylvia and Katherine were giggling and wiping their eyes.

  “To hell with it,” said Katherine, getting up off the chair and tiptoeing to the door. She opened it and peeked out. “I don’t see anyone. I’m making a dash for it.”

  “Don’t,” said Ruth. “It might seem suspicious.”

  Katherine turned and stood up to her full height. “I didn’t kidnap Sister Teresa. Did any of you gals?”

  “Kitty, don’t,” said Bunny, looking pointedly at Barbie.

  “Sorry, Barbs,” Katherine said. I wondered how Barbie had ended up as the injured party. I squeezed Isabella’s shoulder tighter.

  “But it’s not as if I’m about to go bury her body. I only want to put my dang panties away.” Katherine ran down the corridor, still on the tips of her toes.

  Sylvia followed her, then Sally. After a moment, Greta went too. “I’m desperate for the bathroom. Sorry, Barbie.”

  Ruth shook her head.

  I tried to remember the state of my room that morning. It had been a tad messy, but nothing truly shameful. I’d even made the bed, I recalled with a certain smugness.

  “Shit,” Isabella said, her eyes snapping into focus. She stood up and, almost knocking over the ottoman, flew down the corridor to her room.

  I trotted to keep up with her, my knees stiff. “What’s wrong?”

  Isabella glanced behind her as I came through her bedroom door. “Oh. Bridget. Nothing. I forgot something,” she said. She began rummaging through the drawer of her bedside table, then pulled open her Bible and took out a piece of lined paper. I watched her body grow lax with relief. She lifted up the corner of her mattress by her pillow but then let it drop.

  “What did you forget?” I said. I could hear the whine in my voice. What was on that paper? Since when did she keep her Bible in her nightstand anyway?

  “Bridget.” She looked over her shoulder. “Why are you just standing there?”

  “Um—”

  “Grab my chloroquine pills,” she said, tipping enve
lopes and notepads and pamphlets from her desk drawer onto the tiles.

  “Bridget!”

  I fetched the pills from her closet and held the bottle out to her.

  “Take this”—she shoved a box of aspirin at me—“and switch them.”

  “What?”

  “Sit there and switch the damn pills, will you?” She gestured to her chair.

  I sat down, unscrewed the lid of the bottle, and tipped her pills onto my lap. I poured the aspirin into the bottle, then put the pills in the aspirin packet. I brushed the crushed powder from Nancy’s jacket. Over my shoulder I saw Isabella pulling a sheaf of pale blue paper from behind her mirror, folding it in half, and stuffing it in the waistband of her jeans.

  “What do you want to do with them?” I held out the packet and the bottle.

  She yanked the packet from me and threw it in her brown purse at the end of the bed.

  “Leave that wherever,” she said, turning around and adjusting the mirror. I tucked the bottle under a pair of stockings in the top drawer of her dresser. She caught my eye in the reflection. “Don’t you have anything you need to sort out?” she said meaningfully.

  My mouth was dry. “Not really.”

  “No love letters of your own, huh?” There was a cruel slant to her voice. “No trinkets stashed away?”

  “I have fifty dollars in Rhona’s fur,” I said, knowing that wasn’t what she meant.

  There were voices on the stairs—Donna Maria and the low baritone of a man coughing.

  “Damn,” she said. “Come on.”

  We waited by the door until Donna Maria went into the common room, then crept out and back the other way around the corridor, into the bathroom. Isabella pulled the chains on two of the toilets. I stood watching her, confused. I thought perhaps she was going to flush the notes.

  “Jesus, Bridget. What’s wrong with you?” She ran the faucet over her hands and pushed past me, opening the bathroom door with a loud bang. I followed her down the corridor to the common room. There were two men there, both quite old and ropy-looking.